Alternative Vote

[curtis290]

^ Possibly what he said, I got halfway through then gave up.

I did my best to keep it short, I really did my best. (A)



But you are right. All of the statistics that I've seen show that the parties that benefit from the current system and are overrepresented by it are the Tories, BNP, and BCP (communist). I think that Labor benfits from it slightly as well. The Liberal Democrats, of course, are way, way underrepresented by the current system.

I personally think the single-member district system is **** and only makes the slightest bit of sense in a huge nation like the US, where we want to ensure that each little area has a say in the national legislature. But in a small nation like the UK it makes no sense. But if you're going to have single-member districts, at least use AV or a run-off system. I can understand that. But FPTP truly is a horrible, horrible way to elect a representative.

 

[Joel`]

I was dismantling the propaganda in the ad and referencing it to prove my point.

No, I don't like secondary and tertiary preferences. You have 1 vote right now, and I'm fine like that. And I do see it like football, I support a party and want them to win. I don't see the point in having to choose more candidates, because if I wanted them, I'd have voted for them in the first place. I would want my candidate that I voted for to win. Sure, I could list which party in an order from what I like to dislike. The point is that I don't want to, because my 2nd and 3rd choices are after all, the ones I chose to dislike. Hence why, if my candidate loses, I'm not happy. Because while I may have had a "lesser of two evils" I still never really wanted them. Which is why I'm perfectly fine with 1 vote. You could say I'm not forced to choose multiple candidates, but then why should I in essence be receiving less votes and influence in the process because I didn't like more than my first choice? Hardly seems fair to me, and is that not what the reform is about, making the process more fair?

And according to current polls, the majority is with me. And I guess we'll find out on Thursday. I'm not arguing from my sole point. But I'm fairly sure I'm not the only one in the country with these views. So I don't see why I'm restricting anyone, surely if I'm restricting them from exercising their right, they're restricting mine? That's what the whole debate is about, it goes both ways. Someone is going to be on the losing side, after all.

Fair argument, but I don't see a sudden change of decades of representation any time soon. And don't label me with the BNP.

In an ideal world people would be voting solely on the voting process. But, we don't, people always have their own personal self-involved agenda. The majority of the populace in this vote are probably doing it for the "wrong" reasons. People on the left are voting to punish the Lib Dems and people on the right are voting because they see it as a better way to maintain power.

Yes, and this is why I added the option for an alternate system in the poll. There are better ways to democracy, I don't believe AV is it for my reasons listed above. Even when I ignore what I believe are potential gains from voting no, I'm still not seeing enough benefits from AV to vote yes for my reasons listed, which I feel are perfectly logical and valid reasons to be against. I think FPTP has worked for years and has managed to change government according to views of the people. I don't see the point in changing system right now.


And hopefully, for the sake of yours and mine (Mainly yours ) fingers.

 

[King Sid]

What about Labour? You guys are saying that only the Tories and the BNP and extremists benefit from our current system and want to keep it, well so do Labour.

Ed may have come out and said that he's supporting the Yes campaign but the fact is the majority of his party isn't. He's pretty much on his own with that one.

FPTP is not a horrible way to elect a representative. If it was that bad it would have been gotten rid of a long time ago.

 

[Joel`]

This isn't about sodding who you support, this is about fairness in the system. There's no point getting people interested in politics if it's an unfair system. Indeed, some people aren't interested in politics purely because of this unfairness.

You can't deny that has an influence, as I said to Curtis most people have a self-involved reason for how they vote. And I still don't see the point in changing system, because AV still isn't completely fair.

No, it's everyone apart from the Tories, the BNP and the BCP, as well as everyone who wants a fairer system. It does benefit us all, all us voters.

Are they not voters, then?

It means that the majority of people are happier with that person. If Scott Parker lost out to Berbatov under an AV system, more people thought Berbatov was deserving of the award, and he didn't polarise opinion as much as Parker.

Or more people thought Berbatov was deserving of being runner-up in the award.

If United lose, then they deserved to under this system.

My point was that you're still unhappy that your primary team lost. Just like you're still unhappy your primary candidate lost. If people are unhappy that their primary lost, and that number takes the figure below 50%, then you don't have a majority, still. That's the crux of what I'm saying. I don't believe in having multiple votes, and I'm discrediting the secondary and tertiary ones because of that. You choose someone to vote for, and you stick with it.

 

[King Sid]

I was dismantling the propaganda in the ad and referencing it to prove my point.

No, I don't like secondary and tertiary preferences. You have 1 vote right now, and I'm fine like that. And I do see it like football, I support a party and want them to win. I don't see the point in having to choose more candidates, because if I wanted them, I'd have voted for them in the first place. I would want my candidate that I voted for to win. Sure, I could list which party in an order from what I like to dislike. The point is that I don't want to, because my 2nd and 3rd choices are after all, the ones I chose to dislike. Hence why, if my candidate loses, I'm not happy. Because while I may have had a "lesser of two evils" I still never really wanted them. Which is why I'm perfectly fine with 1 vote. You could say I'm not forced to choose multiple candidates, but then why should I in essence be receiving less votes and influence in the process because I didn't like more than my first choice? Hardly seems fair to me, and is that not what the reform is about, making the process more fair?

And according to current polls, the majority is with me. And I guess we'll find out on Thursday. I'm not arguing from my sole point. But I'm fairly sure I'm not the only one in the country with these views. So I don't see why I'm restricting anyone, surely if I'm restricting them from exercising their right, they're restricting mine? That's what the whole debate is about, it goes both ways. Someone is going to be on the losing side, after all.

Fair argument, but I don't see a sudden change of decades of representation any time soon. And don't label me with the BNP.

In an ideal world people would be voting solely on the voting process. But, we don't, people always have their own personal self-involved agenda. The majority of the populace in this vote are probably doing it for the "wrong" reasons. People on the left are voting to punish the Lib Dems and people on the right are voting because they see it as a better way to maintain power.

Yes, and this is why I added the option for an alternate system in the poll. There are better ways to democracy, I don't believe AV is it for my reasons listed above. Even when I ignore what I believe are potential gains from voting no, I'm still not seeing enough benefits from AV to vote yes for my reasons listed, which I feel are perfectly logical and valid reasons to be against. I think FPTP has worked for years and has managed to change government according to views of the people. I don't see the point in changing system right now.


And hopefully, for the sake of yours and mine (Mainly yours ) fingers.

Well said Joel, your not alone in your opinions. I'm under the same beliefs as you just can't phrase it quite as well as you can.

 

[Irish Scouse]

These metaphors are starting to confuse me.

 

[curtis290]

Joel (and others against AV) why wouldn't you prefer a run-off system to FPTP? If they stick with single-member districts, I'd be OK with not having AV if they had a run-off system. That's a much better way to do it than winner-takes-all.

Edit: or maybe you said you did in that last paragraph. At least we're on the same page then.

 

[Joel`]

Joel (and others against AV) why wouldn't you prefer a run-off system to FPTP? If they stick with single-member districts, I'd be OK with not having AV if they had a run-off system. That's a much better way to do it than winner-takes-all.

Edit: or maybe you said you did in that last paragraph. At least we're on the same page then.

My main gripe with AV is the whole secondary and tertiary votes being spread around all over the place, and I'm not going to vote for a system which I don't believe will make us any more democratic than we are, and is mainly being floated around for the Lib Dems. I'm not against making us more democratic, give me a system I actually believe is better and I'll vote for it. AV isn't that system.

From what I have briefly read I have less issue with run-off. From what I gather it's essentially the winner from the winners. Kind of like semi-final to final, I guess.

 

[curtis290]

And hopefully, for the sake of yours and mine (Mainly yours ) fingers.

Oh I'll still type, it's just that on the same team we'd be unstoppable...no one at FM has the stamina to fend off the both of us. 8-|

My main gripe with AV is the whole secondary and tertiary votes being spread around all over the place, and I'm not going to vote for a system which I don't believe will make us any more democratic than we are, and is mainly being floated around for the Lib Dems. I'm not against making us more democratic, give me a system I actually believe is better and I'll vote for it. AV isn't that system.

From what I have briefly read I have less issue with run-off. From what I gather it's essentially the winner from the winners. Kind of like semi-final to final, I guess.

Runoff voting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are a few different ways to do it, and I'd like any of them a lot more than FPTP. From the list on wikipedia, my favorite would probably be exhaustive ballot (though PR is my favorite in general). You wouldn't like instant-runoff and contingent, since it involves ranking the candidates (AV is instant runoff, I believe). Two-round system is similar to exhaustive ballot though shorter, and it would probably be your favorite out of the list. And it is a million times better than FPTP. Check it out. Two-round system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Joel`]

Oh I'll still type, it's just that on the same team we'd be unstoppable...no one at FM has the stamina to fend off the both of us. 8-|



Runoff voting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are a few different ways to do it, and I'd like any of them a lot more than FPTP. From the list on wikipedia, my favorite would probably be exhaustive ballot (though PR is my favorite in general). You wouldn't like instant-runoff and contingent, since it involves ranking the candidates (AV is instant runoff, I believe). Two-round system is similar to exhaustive ballot though shorter, and it would probably be your favorite out of the list. And it is a million times better than FPTP. Check it out. Two-round system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The two round system was the one I was basing it off, yes.

 

[Jack]

Its all an attempt to make the voting system more tactical.

Why can't we just stick with what is now? I vote for who I want to win. Not who I want to come 2nd or 3rd. So I can't complain if my chosen party loses. In my case its Labour.

If you vote you can't complain.

 

[Athe~]

"lesser of two evils"

 

[Joel`]

Are you backing up my point or going against it? :/

 

[Athe~]

Are you backing up my point or going against it? :/

I voted you should try a different system altogether, but that picture was merely for comic relief.

 

[Joel`]

I voted you should try a different system altogether, but that picture was merely for comic relief.

Okay. Just when you took a tiny part of my post and then reply with a picture, confused me at this time of night. ^.^

 

[Athe~]

Okay. Just when you took a tiny part of my post and then reply with a picture, confused me at this time of night. ^.^

No worries, but saw that and remembered the picture.

 

[curtis290]

Its all an attempt to make the voting system more tactical.

Why can't we just stick with what is now? I vote for who I want to win. Not who I want to come 2nd or 3rd. So I can't complain if my chosen party loses. In my case its Labour.

If you vote you can't complain.

It's actually not. Under FPTP you have to vote tactical because you don't vote for the candidate you want, you have to vote for the candidate you think has the best chance of winning (that you don't hate). This can be very tricky if there are three or four good candidates that have equal support. In many cases they split the majority's vote, and some crazy guy ends up with more votes than any of them and is elected. With AV you can vote for whom you actually want without worry about tactics, and then you can choose the most popular candidates you'd prefer as your second and third choices.

People want to move to AV because in real life people have preferences, not simply one vote, and they'd like to express that. You say all you want to vote for is Labor, but do you really have no preference between the Liberal Democrats and the BNP? Pretend that in your district the Labor candidate wouldn't win and that he'd be in 4th place, behind the Tories, Lib Dems, and BNP. The race is actually close between the Lib Dems and the BNP. Are you saying that you have no preference between the two? That you'd be fine with the BNP winning? Even if they were an extremely unpopular party, and that the vast majority of the population, who is reasonable, chose one of the other three parties, giving the BNP the victory? With AV you can express the fact that if Labor doesn't win, you'd much rather see the Lib Dems or the Tories beat the BNP. Why wouldn't you want to do that? And my scenario is a very common one, since the BNP benefits from this system...it's because the candidates from the other party's split the vote of the reasonable people (who are the majority) and the crazy vote ends up being enough to put the BNP guy in power.

As far as "if you vote you can't complain," that's a poor argument. The point is people do vote but they feel that they vote in a poorly constructed electoral system in which they feel that their preferences aren't expressed and that they should change the system. That's what you can do in a democracy. I don't think you can criticize people for wanting to change their electoral system if they don't think it's a good one. It would be messed up if people didn't change the system just because it was the status quo. Which is what I think a lot of people in the UK are doing.

 

[Joel`]

The point is, if you support Labour, then you're not supporting Lib Dems. The whole point of separate parties is that they offer unique policy, or there would be no point having different parties. How am I supposed to say I want Lib Dems when I don't, just because I've said I prefer them to BNP doesn't mean I support them. So when the votes are tallied up, it means they don't have my support, it means they don't have many others support, which in turn means they don't have a majority of people's support, which is supposedly the whole issue.

I get what you're saying, but if you're telling Jack that Labour have no chance, so you list candidates you prefer over BNP. Then that is just tactical voting! By saying that you're conceding Labour won't win, in which case you list alternatives. You may as well just stick to the 1 vote system then, and just vote for your "2nd preference" in AV as your singular vote in FPTP. That is ridiculous. You're just disguising tactical voting in a new system and claiming it as something new. People tactically vote to keep parties they don't want out. And that is just what you've described as an advantage to AV.

 

[curtis290]

The point is, if you support Labour, then you're not supporting Lib Dems. The whole point of separate parties is that they offer unique policy, or there would be no point having different parties. How am I supposed to say I want Lib Dems when I don't, just because I've said I prefer them to BNP doesn't mean I support them. So when the votes are tallied up, it means they don't have my support, it means they don't have many others support, which in turn means they don't have a majority of people's support, which is supposedly the whole issue.

I get what you're saying, but if you're telling Jack that Labour have no chance, so you list candidates you prefer over BNP. Then that is just tactical voting! By saying that you're conceding Labour won't win, in which case you list alternatives. You may as well just stick to the 1 vote system then, and just vote for your "2nd preference" in AV as your singular vote in FPTP. That is ridiculous. You're just disguising tactical voting in a new system and claiming it as something new. People tactically vote to keep parties they don't want out. And that is just what you've described as an advantage to AV.

But it's not tactical voting. In this case, you vote for what you actually believe in. You vote for the party you want, and after that, you list your second and third choices, which people do have in real life. Tactical voting is precisely what happens in FPTP. Say in this district, Labor won't win and it's going to be between the Liberal Democrats and the BNP. With AV, you still can vote for the party of your choice while ensuring that you have a voice in the political process. In real life you do have a preference between the Lib Dems and the BNP, and AV ensures that you can express that. With FPTP, you will tactically vote. If Labor probably won't win, you'll vote for the Lib Dems so that BNP doesn't get into power. In that case you can't even vote for the party you support. This happens all of the time in the US. There are actually a lot of people who agree more with the platforms of the Green and Libertarian parties than the Democrats and Republicans. But they can't express these preferences in a winner-takes-all-system since neither party is likely to win, so people strategically vote Democrat and Republican. Strategic voting is an inherent part of FPTP, only with a different system can you vote for the party/candidate you support without having to forgo your first choice in order to elect the more electable candidate.

As for the bit about "might as well just stick with FPTP and vote for your second choice instead of AV," that wouldn't be as good. Why would we want a system where we have to vote for our second choice? With AV, people are more comfortable with voting for the first choice since they can express their preferences for the mainstream candidate after that. If your critique is that why stick with AV since it's just the same FPTP, than we should go to AV because it at least allows us to vote for who we want while still allowing us to participate in the mainstream battle as FPTP wants us to.

 

[Joel`]

But it's not tactical voting. In this case, you vote for what you actually believe in. You vote for the party you want, and after that, you list your second and third choices, which people do have in real life. Tactical voting is precisely what happens in FPTP. Say in this district, Labor won't win and it's going to be between the Liberal Democrats and the BNP. With AV, you still can vote for the party of your choice while ensuring that you have a voice in the political process. In real life you do have a preference between the Lib Dems and the BNP, and AV ensures that you can express that. With FPTP, you will tactically vote. If Labor probably won't win, you'll vote for the Lib Dems so that BNP doesn't get into power. In that case you can't even vote for the party you support. This happens all of the time in the US. There are actually a lot of people who agree more with the platforms of the Green and Libertarian parties than the Democrats and Republicans. But they can't express these preferences in a winner-takes-all-system since neither party is likely to win, so people strategically vote Democrat and Republican. Strategic voting is an inherent part of FPTP, only with a different system can you vote for the party/candidate you support without having to forgo your first choice in order to elect the more electable candidate..

But if the seat is already set to be taken by Lib Dem/BNP than your 1st preference is irrelevant anyway if you're sure they won't win. You may as well not vote for them and keep the BNP out, which you'd do in FPTP anyway. Also, Lib Dems have been calling for an alliance with Labour under AV. That's still calling for a tactical choice, no?